We ended up moving our production out into a third-party data center. We didn’t have the people to manage HVAC, systems, network, and everything else. (Small business, highly reliant on IT infrastructure)

We ended up with much lower costs this way.

We also virtualized heavily and reduce our server counts significantly.

Obviously you may not be able to do any of these (politically or financially), but they are alternatives.

]]>By: Announcing our September t-shirt winners - ITKE Community Bloghttp://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/itanswers/how-to-improve-cooling-efficiency-of-server-rooms-without-cold-aislehot-aisle-arrangement/#comment-56856
Thu, 02 Oct 2008 16:45:19 +0000#comment-56856[…] –> NEHarris […]
]]>By: facilityguruhttp://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/itanswers/how-to-improve-cooling-efficiency-of-server-rooms-without-cold-aislehot-aisle-arrangement/#comment-56670
Thu, 25 Sep 2008 18:13:12 +0000#comment-56670I would have to add to Steven G’s response in that there isnt enough information to really provide a ‘hard-n-fast’ answer, but there are things that do work physically to assist in this process.

THere is a Covered-foam product called ‘Gap-Hog’ which works and I have used sheets of plexiglass cut to fit under/inbetween/on-top of cabinets as well as regular blanking panels in racks that dont have equipment in them.

I hope this helps!

Facility-Guru
Austin, TX

]]>By: steveng7http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/itanswers/how-to-improve-cooling-efficiency-of-server-rooms-without-cold-aislehot-aisle-arrangement/#comment-56617
Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:45:36 +0000#comment-56617There really isn’t enough information provided in the original question to propose a solution — for example: are you using underfloor cooling with a raised floor, or a slab floor?

What problem are you trying to solve? — hot-spots, uneven room temperatures, or just reducing energy costs?
What type of power/thermal distribution do you have? (high-density racks, blades, low-density, etc.?)
Hint: in some scenarios, hot & cold isles are of little value!

Certainly, the goal is (as Michael stated) to keep hot & cold air from mixing, but in some environments you might not be able to achieve that. In that case, sometimes creating a turbulent airflow and mixing the air (to achieve uniform temps) is the best option. This is certainly not as efficient as a “properly designed” air distribution system but can often be achieved with no downtime and minimal cost investment.

If you eliminate hot-spots and provide uniform air distribution, you can often raise the average temperature in the room and thereby reduce cooling costs.